Dukas, Paul - Ariane et Barbe-Bleu - Polaski, Deborah
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Above all: simply don’t obey.” These words of Ariane could serve as the motto of Paul Dukas’ (1865–1935) opera Ariane et Barbe-Bleue. For when Ariane obeys, then “other laws than his”. This refers to Duke Bluebeard, one of whose wives is Ariane. She in turn got her name from librettist Maurice Maeterlinck: in the original French fairy tale that got into the first edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales from 1812 via Charles Perrault’s Contes de ma mère l’Oye from 1697, she is unnamed.
But that’s not all. Compared to other settings of this story, such as Jacques Offenbach’s Barbe Bleue, Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle or Franz Hummel’s chamber opera Blaubart, Dukas’ piece places Ariane’s coup in the center of the work. She takes her fate in her own hands and doesn’t let Bluebeard oppress her, despite his threats. In contrast to her predecessors, Ariane rolls up her sleeves and makes something of herself. At the end, however, she is alone: none of the other incarcerated wives wants to follow her to freedom.